I Don't Love You Like I Loved You Yesterday
by Riko Ai Kumagai
Summary: Sasuke returns home from Otogakure, not knowing what he should expect from everyone. Sakura doesn't know what she's going to feel for him and isn't surprised when she realizes it's nothing. How will she explain to Sasuke all of her feelings?


**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Naruto or any of the characters in this story.

"Have you heard?"

"Yes, I have! Who killed him?"

"Apparently all the people in his village turned against him and attacked him."

"Even Uchiha Sasuke?"

"I guess so."

The talk spread through Konoha like the name of the country: fire. Apparently, the evil sannin Orochimaru had been killed, and now all the people from Otogakure was coming back to their villages. Some people were willing to accept their old friends, and some in other villages were forming mobs to kill these people when they arrived. And one pink haired green eyed medic kunoichi put her hand over her mouth and a tear welled up in her eye.

"Sasuke...kun..." she whispered.

After a few days, the youngest Uchiha came home. He looked different. His hair was long, like Orochimaru's, and he was obviously stronger. Naruto walked right up to him and there was a moment of heavy silence between the boys for a moment. Everyone around them seemed to be holding their breath. Sasuke, for the first time, couldn't meet Naruto's eyes.

Everyone seemed to be avoiding him, and he knew it. Everyone was afraid that he would try and hurt them, maybe he was unstable, and maybe this was all an act and he was spying.

Sakura watched from a distance. It pained her to watch Sasuke, her Sasuke-kun, receive this treatment, but she hadn't seen him for so long. She'd expected those old, powerful feelings of love towards this boy to come flowing back upon her first looking upon him, but they didn't. They seemed to be remaining dormant.

Every now and again, she'd notice Sasuke watching her. She never said anything about it tthough.

The Uchiha was put into a hospital for a little while. Sakura, still training under Tsunade, was assigned to take care of him. She had a feeling that Tsunade-sama had something to do with that.

It was very late one night when Sakura went to make her rounds. She made a point of going to Sasuke's room last. While she went around, she reflected.

'I haven't seen him in so long, I thought I'd automatically want to be with him again,' she thought. 'Like Ino. Ino already flirts with him some more. But...I hardly want to be friends with him. After everything he put Naruto through...And everything he put the people of the village through...The things he put himself through...And...The things he put _me _through. How can I ever forget that? How could I ever forgive that? He did to me- to us- sort of what Itachi did to him. I never really understood how much it hurt until this happened. And to see him back now...Do I not love him anymore?'

She finished checking on the patient and carefully slid the door into the lock with a small click. She leaned against the door and whispered, "Guess not."

She continued on down and the hall and realized suddenly that she'd finished checking on all the others. The only one left now was Sasuke.

'It wouldn't surprise me if he's left, it's not like it would be the first time.' She remembered briefly all the worry and turmoil she'd gone through when Sasuke had disappeared from the hospital during the Chuunin exams.

'He's never been the type to just sit back.'

Sakura's hand hovered over the doorknob for a moment, debating pointlessly to herself if she should even go in.

'It's my job,' she thought firmly, and without another moment of question, opened the door.

"Sasuke-kun," she whispered gently, "I'm here to check and see if you're okay."

To her surprise, the boy was lying on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Konbanwa, Sakura," he muttered.

"Konbanwa," Sakura said as well. She began to check him over and make sure he was alright without a word, but this time, perhaps the first time in the history of Sasuke's life, he started a conversation with her.

"Gomen nasai."

"For what, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said, sounding as if she was just answering him because it was part of her job to be nice to him and not because she wa nted to be.

"For leaving. For what I did. For going to Orochimaru for power."

Sakura could say nothing to that for a moment. She straightened up after her check up and said, "Iie Sasuke, dai jobu."

She turned to leave but Sasuke stopped her again.

"Iie. It's not," he told her.

'He really wants to talk,' Sakura thought. She turned around and hugged her clipboard to her chest. "Okay Sasuke-kun. We'll talk, if you want to so much."

She sat down on the bed and looked at him.

"Sakura...Orewa..."

He stopped, as if to collect himself.

"I was really messed up for a long time. I just wanted power enough to defeat my brother, and that was all. It seemed to me that the only way I could do that was through Orochimaru, and so I went to him. I was completely desperate."

"I know this story," Sakura said, forcing her voice to be sound gentle. "Dai jobu, hontoni."

"But while I was in Otogakure," Sasuke continued, "I had a lot of time to think. And towards the end, I realized that what I was doing was wrong, and I belonged back in Konoha. I should have learned to forgive and move on after my brother but I couldn't."

"Well how could you have, what he did was awful," Sakura commented. "But you don't have to apologize."

She stood up to leave again, and again, Sasuke said something to stop her without saying 'stop.'

"I guess you don't like me like you used to. I can't expect you to. No one does."

Sakura turned to face him, but this time she was perturbed.

"Sasuke, how could you do to me what you did if you know that I liked you so much?" she demanded. "Knocking me out and leaving me in the cold like that? How?"

Sasuke opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.

"No one could like a person after going through what I did with you. I loved you Sasuke-kun, really, I did. I just wanted to make you happy even if that meant helping you kill your brother. I wanted you to stay, I wanted you to live the life of a normal twelve year old genin. But you didn't want to. You didn't want any help. You just wanted revenge. Nothing else mattered at all. Not your friends. Not the people that kept you dear to their heart."

"I...I couldn't think of anything but revenge, Sakura, I told you...I told you, I was really messed up, for a really long time."

Sakura nodded and stood up. "Aa. And now you're not 'so messed up' anymore and now you want what has already been offered. That offer is gone, Sasuke. No one is going to want to love you anymore."

For a final time, she walked to the door and paused.

Then she turned to say quietly, "I don't love you like I did all those yesterdays ago."

She turned the doorknob and left Sasuke to the crushing silence of the hospital room, like he'd done to others but had never felt himself.


End file.
